


Endings

by AliceInKinkland



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Character Study, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29294505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceInKinkland/pseuds/AliceInKinkland
Summary: Guinan, Ro Laren, and some ways to tell a story.
Relationships: Guinan/Ro Laren
Comments: 13
Kudos: 21
Collections: Star Trek: Just in Time Fest





	Endings

The first time Guinan and Ro have sex, Ro drags the concept of endings into Guinan’s bed like a carcass.

“This won’t last forever,” she says, pulling away from Guinan’s kiss to sit up, straddling Guinan’s hips. “Us, I mean.” Her headband is charmingly askew, which makes the seriousness of her expression almost overwhelmingly adorable, but Guinan knows better than to point it out just then.

“Is that a problem for you?” says Guinan, her hands resting steadily on Ro’s slight waist. “That whatever happens between us is going to end someday?”

“No,” says Ro, quick and sure. She’s tense as a bowstring pulled taut. Guinan craves her in the way she craves Listening: for both the ease and the challenge. “I just think it’s important to be upfront.”

“Laren,” says Guinan, then pauses, watching for Ro’s reaction to the use of her given name. When Ro nods, Guinan continues, “I’m not looking for marriage here. To be perfectly frank, I’ve been married enough times already. Been there, done that. I like my space, my freedom. I’m happy to just see where this goes, if you are.”

When Ro’s expression does not soften, Guinan meets her gaze, and says, “I can handle the heartbreak.”

This finally seems to be what Ro needs to hear. She leans in once again, pressing her lips to Guinan’s, kissing exactly how Guinan imagined, all those nights Guinan considered the pros and cons of approaching her: kissing like she has something to prove.

* * *

A week later, Ro is talking about endings once more.

“I don’t like it when stories start right at the beginning like that,” she says, frowning. The more time Guinan spends with Ro, the more she’s developed a kind of taxonomy of Ro’s frowns. This one means Ro is trying to articulate something.

They’re talking about a play some cadets performed earlier that evening in Ten Forward. Guinan thought it was cute. But Ro is a harsher critic.

“So where do you like stories to start, then?” says Guinan. She is putting her hair up in a silk cap for the night. Ro lays on her back on Guinan’s bed, hands behind her head as though she’s staring up at clouds. Guinan feels the deep peace of Listening begin to fill her, which doesn’t always happen when she’s talking to Ro. (Sometimes Ro doesn’t say very much at all).

“Stories should start with the ending,” says Ro, as though this is the most logical thing in the world.

“That’s very Bajoran, right?” says Guinan.

“Is it?”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong,” says Guinan, “because the last time I was on Bajor was over 200 years ago. But as far as I understand it, it’s common in Bajoran literature to tell stories ending-first. Something about how the experience of knowing what will happen before it does is thought to bring you closer to the perspectives of the Prophets.”

Ro’s frown now is a very different one, a deeper one. She touches her hand to the earring dangling from her left ear. “Well, I don’t think that’s what it is for me. I just think it saves a lot of trouble.”

“Oh really? So stories are all about efficiency for you?”

Guinan is teasing, and Ro has learned to see it, so she rolls her eyes instead of bristling. “Of course not,” says Ro. “It’s just, everything ends. I like when stories are upfront about that.”

“How do you like a story to end, then?” asks Guinan. “If you’ve already used up the ending to start off with?”

Ro shrugs. “I don’t really know.”

“How about with a beginning?”

“If there is one, sure.”

Guinan will think about this conversation, later.

* * *

Sometimes people think that being El-Aurian, being a Listener, means that Guinan is a collector of stories. They’re not wrong, but they’re not entirely correct, either.

Listening is a skill for Guinan, developed over centuries, but Listening is also a need. A drive in the El-Aurian bodymind, a biological imperative. There is a deep sense of rightness that infuses every El-Aurian (a number that used to be much, much greater than it is now) when they are Listening. It is not a sense most humanoids share, but over the centuries Guinan has learned to describe it to those who ask as a warmth, or a glow, or an answer.

The collecting of stories is simply a side effect.

Some people find this off-putting. Guinan would be the first to tell you that it is not entirely benign. El-Aurians can use their abilities to scam and swindle, to build trust and then dash it to pieces. They can also Listen in a way that pays no mind to the aftereffects on the teller, digging their fingers into someone’s trauma, drinking it down, leaving them gaping open for the wind to rattle through. Or they can lose themselves completely in the stories of others, become and become until they simply cease to be.

Guinan does her best to do none of these things. And one strategy she has found in this regard is to never try to fit someone’s story into a certain structure. All cultures have different ideas about how to tell a story. Humans have their three acts, their rising action followed by their single climax. Cardassians have their repetitive epics. But in reality, people’s lives are messy. Events do not happen in a pleasing sequence. To Listen—properly, ethically, satisfactorily for all involved—is to allow the teller to tell a story however makes sense for them, without slotting it into any of Guinan’s own accumulated frames of reference.

Still, there is something about Ro that makes Guinan think, over and over again, about endings.

* * *

It is not surprising, then, that when Ro abandons Starfleet to join the Maquis, Guinan thinks about endings once more.

Is this the moment where Ro would expect Guinan to begin, if she were ever to tell the story of the two of them? Ro’s goodbye to Guinan before she began her undercover mission was perfunctory. In part that is because she was clearly expecting to return. But also, it had already been a while since they’d shared a bed, or even a conversation; Ro had been away from the Enterprise, getting advanced tactical training, and she has never been very good at keeping up a regular correspondence with people far away. Guinan let Ro back off, not wanting to crowd her, box her in. And now—well, now she is gone.

Guinan hopes Ro would understand, if she started their story somewhere other than this particular ending. She isn’t sure Ro would, though. Ro is stubborn when she wants to be, and also sometimes when she doesn’t.

Guinan wipes down the bar, stacks the glasses. Now this is an ending she likes—last call. A little melancholy, a little satisfying. An ending with another beginning wrapped up inside of it.

* * *

Consider:

Are Guinan and Ro both living after their people’s respective apocalypses? Are their stories always made of endings? Is the nature of diaspora such that they are always _after_ , never beginning at the beginning?

* * *

Maybe this is how Guinan should begin:

Crayons, and paper, and Ro’s child-face screwed up in concentration. She’s working in browns and purples, and Guinan is respecting her wishes not to look at the paper, but she’s got her suspicions as to the identity of Ro’s current portrait subject. Sure enough, Ro puts down the dark brown crayon with one final flourish, and with a triumphant, “There!” holds the paper out for Guinan’s inspection.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” she says, and it is: there’s Guinan, her face captured in children’s crayon. Her soft eyes, her hat, her carefully-cultivated smile.

“Keep it,” says Ro. “Or don’t, I mean—do whatever you want with it, it’s yours.”

“I will treasure it,” says Guinan, and though Ro barks a laugh, her child-hands hanging awkwardly at her sides, Guinan is deadly serious.

“OK,” says Ro. She gathers up the crayons into their box, stacks the paper, hops off her stool. “I’m done, now. We can go to the transporter room.”

“I don’t think you’re quite done,” says Guinan.

“No, I am,” says Ro. “It’s been better than I expected, being a kid, and thanks for showing me that, but I want to get back to work.”

“Of course. All I mean is, I think this piece of art is missing a signature. An artist should always sign her work.”

Ro rolls her eyes, but she takes the paper back from Guinan. She grabs a crayon out of the box. Guinan watches as Ro writes out her name in Bajoran characters, round and full, ancient and alive.

“There. The end,” says Ro decisively, crayon lifting from the page.

Yes. This is where Guinan will begin, at least when she tells this story to herself.


End file.
